Women’s Perspectives on Bacon’s Rebellion: Expert Panel Discussion and Open House Tour

Join us at Bacon’s Castle for our May Bacon’s Rebellion at 350 Years Program – featuring a panel of expert historians and archaeologists as they discuss how women participated in, and were affected by, Bacon’s Rebellion 350 years ago. Bacon’s Castle will also be open before and after the lecture for an open house style tour with featured stops with our panel experts.

Purchase Your In-Person and Virtual Lecture Tickets Here

Meet the Panelists:

Brenna Geraghty, Education Manager, Preservation Virginia

Brenna Geraghty is a public historian and Education Manager for Preservation Virginia, where she has worked since 2020. She is a 2015 graduate of VCU’s School of World Studies. Her background in archaeology and museum work has a strong focus on Surry County, particularly in relation to Bacon’s Rebellion and its sociopolitical impacts in the lives of everyday Virginians. Brenna is passionate about the representation of women, children, and minorities in museum interpretation, and has contributed to the Journal of Slavery and Data Preservation.

Merry A. Outlaw, Senior Curator for Jamestown Rediscovery/Preservation Virginia Senior Curator

Merry Outlaw is the author of Following the Dragon: Chinese Ming Porcelain from James Fort, Jamestown, Virginia. With Bly Straube, Senior Curator of Jamestown Settlement, she co-curates the exhibition Following the Dragon, which explores the global reach of Chinese porcelain in early English America. Previously, she served as Curator of Collections at the Virginia Research Center for Archaeology, where she cataloged materials from the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Kingsmill Plantation sites and the Drummond Site (ca. 1648–1820). For a decade, she edited New Discoveries in Ceramics in America. She was also a member of the Smithsonian’s Written in Bone exhibition team, which led to the excavation of the home and burial of her seventeenth-century Isle of Wight ancestor, Colonel Joseph Bridger.

Beverly A. (Bly) Straube, PhD, FSA, Senior Curator, Jamestown Settlement Museum, Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation

A proud fellow of the Society of Antiquaries since 2005, Bly earned her PhD in Archaeology and Ancient History from the University of Leicester, England. She is Senior Curator for the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation where she is using her “17th-century brain” to enhance the Jamestown Settlement exhibition galleries. Part of the Jamestown Rediscovery project from its outset, Bly served twenty-one years as the senior archaeological curator identifying and interpreting over 1.5 million finds from England’s first successful transatlantic colony. She loves the honesty of material culture coming out of the ground by archaeological methodologies and doing the research to uncover the new stories it can reveal. She has published and lectured on many topics related to 17th-century Virginia including ceramics, tobacco pipes, glass, weaponry, and numismatics. Her most recent article, co-authored with Merry Outlaw, is on the ceramic collection of rebel Sarah Drummond and will appear in Ceramics in America 2026.

Ashley Spivey, Ph.D. (Pamunkey), Executive Director, Kenah Consulting

Dr. Ashley Spivey is an historical anthropologist specializing in the archaeology and culture of Powhatan Algonquian communities located in Tidewater Virginia. Dr. Spivey’s academic and professional experience has centered on supporting tribal sovereignty through tribal cultural and natural resource management and tribal historic preservation. She has worked with tribes, universities, museums, and federal and state agencies to support and implement historic preservation as well as cultural and natural resource management programs that incorporate the needs of tribal communities. As a member of the Pamunkey Indian Tribe, Dr. Spivey has a close connection to the Indigenous communities of Virginia. This has included developing Indigenous led cultural heritage and natural resource management strategies and facilitating administrative capacity building through consultation on program development and implementation.

Amy Stallings, Ph.D.

A graduate of William & Mary with a Ph.D. in Early American History, Amy teaches for W&M’s National Institute of American History and Democracy (NIAHD) as well as developing and presenting programs for the Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation.  At Jamestown, her research has contributed to the “Women of Jamestown” walking tours, and she has written a variety of first-person interpretations, including performing as Lady Frances Berkeley, the loyal and opinionated wife of Governor Sir William Berkeley.